The sky-scraping 2,080-foot-tall <a href="http://www.tokyo-skytree.jp/english/" target="_blank">Tokyo Skytree</a> just officially opened this week, making it the world's tallest tower according to the Guinness Book of Records. The soaring needle is the world’s largest communication tower, and the <a href="http://inhabitat.com/azerbaijans-avesta-group-unveils-plan-to-build-new-worlds-tallest-tower/" target="_blank">second highest building</a> to boot. Click ahead for more photos of this stunning building!

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Tokyo Sky Tree

Located on the east side of Tokyo in the Asakusa traditional district, the Tokyo Sky Tree rises in gleaming silver, dwarfing the city blocks around it.

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Tokyo Sky Tree

<em><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&amp;search_source=search_form&amp;version=llv1&amp;anyorall=all&amp;safesearch=1&amp;searchterm=tokyo+skytree&amp;search_group=#id=92752396&amp;src=ee10609a7d2620738245badc7583cde3-1-0">Tokyo Skytree</a> photo from <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/">Shutterstock</a></em>
Located on the east side of Tokyo in the Asakusa traditional district, the Tokyo Skytree rises in gleaming silver, dwarfing the city blocks around it. The communication tower is the lone skyscraper in the neighborhood, so it soars above the surrounding structures - it even trumps Toronto’s CN Tower by 265 feet.
The sky-scraping 2,080 foot <a href="http://www.tokyo-skytree.jp/english/" target="_blank">Tokyo Skytree</a> was recently completed in Japan on the site of a former freight shunting yard on the Sumida River....<br><br><a href='http://inhabitat.com/tokyos-new-earthquake-resistant-sky-tree-is-the-worlds-second-tallest-building/'>READ ARTICLE</a>

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Tokyo Sky Tree

It even <a href="http://inhabitat.com/nakheel-tower-by-woods-bagot-will-be-worlds-tallest-tower/" target="_blank">trumps Toronto’s CN Tower</a> by almost 1,000 feet!

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Tokyo Sky Tree

Tokyo tourism hopes that the <a href="http://inhabitat.com/adrian-smith-gordon-gill-announces-it-will-design-the-mile-high-kingdom-tower-in-dubai/" target="_blank">Sky Tree tower </a>attracts tourists like the CN Tower does, as tourism has dwindled since the Fukushima disaster.

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Tokyo Sky Tree

It's a likely prospect, since the height of the tower is only eclipsed by Dubai’s <a href="http://inhabitat.com/mission-impossible-burj-khalifa-tower-park-worlds-tallest-building-makes-its-movie-debut/" target="_blank">Burj Khalifa</a>.

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Tokyo Sky Tree photo

The tower itself cost $806 million, not including the communications structures inside, and it took 580,000 workers to construct.

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Tokyo Sky Tree

The sky-scraping 2,080-foot-tall Tokyo Skytree just officially opened this week, making it the world's tallest tower according to the Guinness Book of Records. The soaring needle is the world’s largest communication tower, and the second highest building to boot. Click ahead for more photos of this stunning building!